So, I’m trying to make it easy for potential clients to find me online.
Many listicles I see about driving traffic to your website focus on making blog posts and providing free content (like tutorials or downloads).
Sounds like ballux to me.
Besides SEO, are there other tips you have for being findable online? What do you think of the blog and/or free content method?
in 2007 I attended a SEO seminar in NYC before google took over the internets (Google later started the SERP for good with “Universal Search”—integrating plain, 10-listing SERPS with features like News, Video, Images, Local, and other verticals that year)
every speaker urged adding links links and more links!
this will promote the action of your site.
have you submitted your site to google?
i forgot how to do that but there are steps you can find online.
If these ideas are archaic, the others here will let us know.
I set up a google business and a yelp
You’ll need to use Google’s Search Console and input your website so that Google can “crawl” it and pull keywords and phrases often used for SEO. The blog posts and such are a great benefit actually. You can repeat certain keywords and phrases so your site shows with those keywords. But don’t use the same word over and over (spamming) in the same article as Google sees that and ignores it due to spamming. There’s a fine line to find. But yes content, blogs, and even some downloadables actually do help.
In 1 year we went from not even on the damn map to top 10 positions in at least 25 main keywords.
Cool thanks, I did the search console but it did not give me any keywords, just said I have no errors.
It makes sense that blogs and downloads would help, but I’m terrible at writing and I don’t want to spend my time doing that. It seems like I’d spend a lot of time creating this content and likely not increase my traffic a significant amount. Also sounds a bit gimmicky, you know? or maybe this was an outdated tactic.
It probably works if you’re making good content that attracts the right people to your website, right?
Search Console won’t give you keywords, it’s basically just used to map your site and give Google access. Then you add your keywords through Google Analytics tied to the same Search Console account.
It does take time to increase your SEO by yourself, and yes it has to be applicable to your industry of course. For instance I work at a packaging company, and we have blog posts such as “Top Tips for Creating Custom Packaging” or “Differences Between Folding Carton and Rigid Boxes”, etc… It won’t happen overnight or even in the first month or two. It’s not like paid Google ads with instant gratification unfortunately. This is why most larger companies hire a marketing company to handle it if they don’t have their own internal marketing team because it takes some time and dedication.
Backlinks also help, like refer to pages on your website and link them in your blog posts. That way the user stays on your site longer, increasing chances of a conversion. Additionally, most marketing companies can get you in on other website’s posts like “Top 10 Packaging Companies in the US” and that helps quite a bit as well, but again–takes time.
Oh ok got it thank you.
What about adding metadata to images? Mainly my website is a portfolio - images of my work. Is it bad to add the same keywords to those images similarly to adding too many of the same keywords to an article?
What one of my friends did recently is sort of a test - they asked their FB friends to google a certain term and click on their page when it came up in the results. I’m thinking of doing the same thing.
Yes! Metadata from images is important to Google as well (: I don’t believe it’s as counted as just straight body copy is, but I know from doing our own site with our marketing company that metadata does come in handy. I’m not sure about the repetition though being counted as spamming with metadata. I wouldn’t think it would be an issue because it’s obviously all about the same topic.
Note that SEO/Organic Clicks and PPC are also dependent on location if you’re only targeting to a certain area. Example: For our PPC (paid ads at top of Google) we have targeted toward the Southeast, so anyone googling us far north or far west will not pull us up when searching for say, “Custom Packaging”. We did that on purpose because of freight costs. There’s a lot to it!
a good page will have at least the key phrase 3-5 times in the content including H1 which should be the H2
If your client is a plumber in Washington DC “plumbing repair in Washington DC” should be in the content: Joe Smith and sons have 206 years of plumbing repair in Washington DC for both residential, commercial and political buildings. Our experienced plumbers can clean pipes, replace sewage lines, inspect pipes and drainage systems and perform other plumbing repair in Washington DC services.
So that’s why the copy in some websites sounds so stupid.
we sacrificed grammar for google way too much!
There are a lot of sacrifices on the Altar of Google.
cool - so follow up question about metadata; if I’m adding the tags and for example I put things like “Graphic Design, San Francisco, business cards” will someone who searches for “Graphic Designer for business cards in San Francisco” would google be able to find it that way? or would I need to include all variations? (So I’d have to put Graphic Design, Graphic Designer San Francisco, business cards, business card design San Francisco, ect)
Google doesn’t really tell anyone the exact details or it would make it too easy for people to trick their system.
One thing you can count on, though, is they’re good at what they do. Since performing a Google search on various words brings up all the alternative combinations, I think we can reasonably assume that their algorithms can figure out that if San Francisco and Graphic Design appear separately in the same meta data list, Google knows they’re associated with each other.
we used 2 or 3 word key phrases for metadata on photos like “graphic design SF” the next photo “Business Cards SF” this was years ago tho. “Graphic Designer for business cards in San Francisco” might be too large to fit in that box after right clicking the image and adding the tag or phrase.
the company i worked for had a good relationship because they paid google for keywords and ad campaigns, the manager was always on the phone with google.
i personally will not use google even if they provided oxygen.
It would tag as three separate keywords/phrases, so any combo of those 3 would pull it up, and it does not have to be all 3. They could just be googling “San Francisco Business Cards” or even something further away like “San Francisco coffee shops”, because you have “San Francisco” as it’s own keyword, you’re wasting clicks/money on non-applicable clicks. You need to make sure that every keyword is a target directly to you, such as “San Francisco Business Cards” as one keyword/phrase. Long-tail phrases do not get as many results, but they do get more targeted and applicable results. It’s all about finding the balance for you.
Think of all the mega-companies like WestRock or GP that are also targeting generic terms like “business cards” and “graphic design”. They’ve got a huge budget and throwing tons of money at these keywords because they’re high volume, so you’ll need to bid high to make it on the first page. Now with SEO/Organic results there’s no “pay more for more views” scenario so it’s all about your content and dedication to the website and blog posts.